KIÖPING, Nils Mattsson; WILLMAN, Olof Eriksson; [CARON, François]
Een kort beskriffning uppå trenne resor och peregrinationer, sampt Konungarijket Japan: I. Beskrifwes een Reesa, som genom Asia, Africa och många andra hedniska Konungarijken, sampt Öjar; medh flijt är förrättat aff Nils Matson Kiöping … II. Förstelles thet stoora och machtiga Konungarijke Japan, samt thes invånares handel och wandel. III. Beskrifwes een Reesa till Ost Indien, China och Japan, giordh och beskrefwen aff Oloff Erickson Willman … IIII. Uthföres een reesa ifrån Muszcow till China, genom Mongul och Cataija … … Wisingsborgh [Visingsborg] : Johann Kankel, 1667. Four parts in one volume, quarto (195 x 160 mm), contemporary vellum over boards, spine with early manuscript lettering; front pastedown with ownership inscription (dated 1819) and manuscript notes of G. Sparre (most likely the Swedish nobleman Gabriel Adolf Gabrielsson Sparre, 1775-1844) and later armorial bookplate of Swedish politician Carl Trolle-Bonde (1843-1912); pp. [4], 257 [i.e. 258, as two pages are numbered 168]; paper typically browned, scattered foxing, front free-endpaper stained, title with pale marginal water stain; a very good example.
Very rare first edition of this Swedish collection of travelogues, printed in 1667 in a run of only 500 copies by German printer Johann Kankel at the newly-established private press of Swedish nobleman, Count Per Brahe the Younger, at Visingsborg (Wisingsborg) on the island of Visingsö in Lake Vättern. Brahe’s collection was the first such anthology of travel accounts to be published in the Swedish language. Later editions appeared in 1674 and 1743.
The first section contains the account of Nils Mattsson Kiöping (1621-1680), who in 1648 sailed on a Dutch ship to the coast of West Africa, the Cape of Good Hope, and then on to Persia where he remained for several years in the service of the Shah. In 1652 he continued his journey by ship to Ceylon, Java and Formosa.
The second and third sections, which have their own title-pages (both with the same imprint as the main title) comprise an account of Japan by Olof Eriksson Willman, followed by a narrative of Willman’s travels in the East Indies, China and Japan. Willman was an exact contemporary of Kiöping. In 1648 he sailed with a VOC ship to the East Indies, where he stayed in Java until proceeding to Japan, arriving there in August 1651. He provides an important and detailed eyewitness description of the country, including as a participant in a Dutch embassy to Edo. His account of the Tōkaidō, or “Eastern Sea Route” – the road along the Pacific coast of Honshu connecting the imperial capital Kyoto with the shogunate capital Edo (Tokyo) – is one of the earliest by a European. He also includes a Swedish translation of François Caron’s Japan account.
The fourth account – by far the briefest in the collection – is that of a Russian who travelled via Siberia and Mongolia to China. It has its own drophead title, but no imprint.
Cordier, Japonica, 379-80 (“première édition très rare”); Collijn iv 456-457
Sachgebiete: Japan, Reisen/Reiseliteratur
04.09.2026 - 02:10
7500,- EUR
Douglas Stewart Fine Books (Australia)
